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Euroga needed to settle an "airport bar over a beer" dispute about ownership costs...

Hi All,

Many of you helped me out with a lot of good advice and information when I was shopping for my plane, especially on the costs vs homebult and CofA.

At the time of searching, there was a guy in my club who wanted me to buy into a share 50/50 with him. My conclusion was to go permit to fly pver CofA because even with a 50/50 the wholly owned permit was cheaper, from all the info.

The flying has been awesome and very affordable with the permit.

Anyway, enough background, the point of the post. I bumped into the guy today, and he looked over my aircraft and made comments about how we should have bought one together. When I explained the research that I had done, where figures of about 1000€ per month for a PA28/C172 were quoted… check my other thread… he said thay this is no longer true and the costs of a PA28/C172 are now minimal becasue of new EASA regs.

I have not looked too closely at the EASA regs because my aircraft is not directly subject to them, so I couldn’t counter too much.

How have you CofA owners seen costs affected by the new EASA regs? Can you self declare your annual? I.e. there is no more need for a CAMO or other organisation.

Regards

Jon

EDHS, Germany

We had fixed costs of €1000,00 per month, aircraft hangered. PA28-235.

Last Edited by Peter_Mundy at 30 Jan 16:31
EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

Seeing as ELA1 has only come in force very recently, it is a bit soon to know what it will do to the fixed costs.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Hangarage is largely dependent on the location. I know people who pay 350€/month for hangarage in a combined hangar and those who pay 50€/month in a single “shelter”. I guess there is room to either side, depending on location / deal made. However, hangar costs is something independent of the question if the aircraft is certified or not. (Roland may tell you about a trailer, but there are trailerable certified aircraft, too, so in principle it is much more dependent on the exact aircraft type).

The main difference as it comes to maintenance is cost for certifying staff. Assuming you are talking about a VFR ELA-1 aircraft, basically you can do everything – including complex maintenance and repair tasks – yourself, as long as you have a Part 66 certifying staff [CFS], at least with a B3 license, to sign your work. It isn’t too far fetched, I know a guy who has repaired an ASH25 in his living room (basically) and another few who installed winglets on their aircraft in the aero club’s workshop. One guy even installed an engine in his DG-300 without being CFS. It depends on what you do and how you get along with your CFS how much you’ll pay. So that is basically the same as for non-CoA-aircraft. (I assume you do want to have an other trained pair of eyes to look over your changes and komplex repairs…)

Additionally, there are a lot of tasks that you can perform and release as pilot owner of the aircraft. For many types this includes 50hr checks and a good chunk of 100hr checks or annual maintenance tasks. It differs a bit from type to type, depending on what the manufacturer prescribes in the maintenance manual.

You don’t have to let your maintenance programme be approved by the authorities anymore, so you can deviate from regulations in certain limits.

Based on our aircraft, we pay around 600-800€/year for paperwork and ARC. I do not know how much a non CoA aircraft will cost in annual checks by an inspector, I think it depends a bit on the country of registration. For a sensible maintenance, this is about the difference I’d expect to see.

Of course, if you don’t maintain your aircraft by yourself, the maintenance cost will be higher, but much of the work has to be done anyway and the work will cost the same if done on an aircraft with or without CoA. Non certified exchange parts can be cheaper, but then the owner has to ensure, that the used item is fit for the job.

A complete other topic are conversions and upgrades. Here, an experimental can be considerably cheaper, although the subject being an aircraft, you have to be careful what you do, on an experimental, too, because certain changes can become lethal, or at least a PITA to maintain and durability of the plane or affect flight characteristics. But if you, for instance, want to include a good engine monitor, this is certainly cheaper to accomplish in a non CoA-Aircraft, than in a certified one.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

We had fixed costs of €1000,00 per month, aircraft hangered. PA28-235.

Do you have any breakdown of that figure, Peter? It does seem very high.

where figures of about 1000€ per month for a PA28/C172 were quoted… check my other thread… he said thay this is no longer true and the costs of a PA28/C172 are now minimal becasue of new EASA regs.

I would be surprised if the costs changed much so long as the work actually done was similar. One has to compare exactly like for like, and obviously there won’t be many cases where someone moved an aircraft from CofA to some other category under which one can do the things which really save money e.g.

  • owner maintenance (no company involved)
  • use uncertified parts / parts obtained with no paperwork
  • install uncertified equipment
  • ignore component life limits
  • ignore SBs and ADs

Even on a CofA type, of which I have 14 years experience of ownership, what makes the biggest difference is

  • owner maintenance (no company involved, but working with a freelance engineer) for Annuals
  • owner maintenance for 50hr checks (perhaps with a freelance engineer)
  • self procurement of all materials (the TB20 Annual parts come to about €300!)
  • being N-reg (avoids various second-order stuff, pointless dismantling of items, etc)

One must notice that both lists above imply close involvement of the owner, and throwing in a fair bit of one’s time while valuing that time at zero value. But most people don’t want to do that!

ELA1, from what I can see, saves only a little, on the first item on the upper list.

Unless, of course, you are using a company which is totally robbing you, and that is the case in many situations I have seen. It is amazingly also the case when people are completely aware of it but they cannot change because they are locked in a dysfunctional syndicate where no agreement can be reached on anything. And I think all the very large maintenance figures are from situations like that, sometimes combined with an aircraft which has been neglected for many years but again no agreement can be reached on what to do with it.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Jon, don’t forget the fun factor A Europa is in no way comparable with a PA28/C172.
OTOH with the LAA (outside the UK) you’ve chosen the hard way.

EDLE

Our fixed costs covered everything from hangerage, insurance, CAMO fee, radio licence, battery check…….just about everything except fuel

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Seeing as ELA1 has only come in force very recently, it is a bit soon to know what it will do to the fixed costs.

That was my main first thought. The way it was presented to me, was a de facto done deal… ELA1 does away with everything. Also the reason I turned to the forum, because there are many of you on here who are subject to ELA1 now and could at least fill in gaps in my knowledge. As Roland points out I am currently LAA on the homebuilds, so understand that side very well; but ELA1 is a bit elusive to me.

mh wrote:

Assuming you are talking about a VFR ELA-1 aircraft, basically you can do everything – including complex maintenance and repair tasks – yourself, as long as you have a Part 66 certifying staff [CFS], at least with a B3 license, to sign your work.

Non certified exchange parts can be cheaper, but then the owner has to ensure, that the used item is fit for the job.

In effect this makes it similar to the homebuild scene. However I assume that you can’t just install anything like you can on the experimentals (subject to the fit for purpose), and would for example be limited to certified avionics, LED lighting etc. This is where I think e-conditions in England will help; but that is still being bedded in.

mh wrote:

Based on our aircraft, we pay around 600-800€/year for paperwork and ARC.

That’s currently about 3 times the amount I pay for the PtF equivalent.

Of course, if you don’t maintain your aircraft by yourself, the maintenance cost will be higher, but much of the work has to be done anyway and the work will cost the same if done on an aircraft with or without CoA.

Now this is the rub. So it seems that if you do everything yourself then the CofA route has reduced in cost. However you are still limited to certified parts. That will increase costs significantly. I am looking at a complete glass cockpit upgrade for mine, (I need to do 8.33/Mode S this year anyway, so thought start again) and the costs are very favourable.

Peter wrote:

I would be surprised if the costs changed much so long as the work actually done was similar.

Agree. As mentioned above I have some work to do, which would have to be done on a CofA also (8.33/S) and the comment back from the guy was (and quoting exactly) “Oooo… that’s a lot of work, why don’t you pay a shop to install it for you.” while at the same time indicating the maintenance costs have gone comparable to PtF.

europaxs wrote:

don’t forget the fun factor A Europa is in no way comparable with a PA28/C172.

There is no comparison. I did some numbers and with the current costs of Avgas/Mogas plus a few bits relevant to each flying hour I came up with ca. 100€ ph for a PA28/C172 and 35€ per hour for my Europa. Plus a PA28/C172 for that money you bimble at 100 knots, my 80Hp Europa does 115knots.

Just fun factor? Roland, there is also the bragging factor – I still smile, when I remember on my ferry flight to Germany, the London FISO who gave traffic to a PA28 in front of me, over Dover “Traffic, a Europa, same level, passing your right hand side, same direction”

europaxs wrote:

OTOH with the LAA (outside the UK) you’ve chosen the hard way.

Some things are a foot to solve that.

Last Edited by italianjon at 31 Jan 09:23
EDHS, Germany

italianjon wrote:

There is no comparison. I did some numbers and with the current costs of Avgas/Mogas plus a few bits relevant to each flying hour I came up with ca. 100€ ph for a PA28/C172 and 35€ per hour for my Europa. Plus a PA28/C172 for that money you bimble at 100 knots, my 80Hp Europa does 115knots.

The hour rate of 100€ per hour seems right for the 172, as long as you fly around 200+ hours per year. Depends a bit on what you include, but my calculation (CSL, Hangar, Engine and Prop overhaul, scheduled maintenance, no hull insurance) gives you a pessimistic 108€/hour on AVGAS at 200 hours, and on Airfield Mogas at 110 hours. If you can get petrol station fuel at current prices you only need to fly 75 hours to get to 108€/h. (With 200h/a you’ll have 93€/h and 78€/h respectively).

The 172b will happily cruise at 106KTAS and the 172P a bit over 110KTAS. The Archer II can be flown slightly above 120KTAS, but, of course, all for the expense of more fuel flow. However, the C172 and PA28 do have two more seats and this opportunity need to be carried around. You can find many nice two seat certified aircraft, however, that aren’t too slow and thirsty. The Fascination VLA comes to mind (although I haven’t flown her), or the Bölkow Junior. The Junior is happy with 91 €/h at 105-110KTAS and 244kg useful load when flying 100h/a, not bad for a design out of 1961, eh? Of course it might not be that comfy as the Europa, but it gives you a more compareable dataset :-) I haven’t flown the Europa so far, but the Junior handles nicely, although a bit heavy on the elevator. I like flying the little bugger.

The Falco can be had as experimental, as well as certified aircraft, or some of the Jodels (D11 series, D140) have been built under both regimes. One could call some of the operators to get a real life difference, I guess.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

mh wrote:

The hour rate of 100€ per hour seems right for the 172, as long as you fly around 200+ hours per year. Depends a bit on what you include, but my calculation (CSL, Hangar, Engine and Prop overhaul, scheduled maintenance, no hull insurance) gives you a pessimistic 108€/hour on AVGAS at 200 hours, and on Airfield Mogas at 110 hours.

I only calculated the direct cost of what you need for that hour. 30 litres of Avgas at 2.24€/l plus a bit for engine fund and then the same for the Europa with 14 litres of Mogas at 1.21€/l – I excluded hangarage, insurance etc. because that is variable and ends up spread over all your hours.

EDHS, Germany
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